Bulls Outlast Raptors
Posted December 29, 2006 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Whatever the Chicago Bulls are doing when they play the Toronto Raptors seems to be working just about perfectly.
The Bulls continued a long stretch of dominance against the Dinos Friday night, getting behind 25 points from Luol Deng and cruising to a 107-97 win.
The victory is Chicago’s 15 th straight against Toronto and ended a three-game winning streak at the Air Canada Centre.
The last time the Raps managed a win against Chicago was December 6, 2002 when Lenny Wilkens was head coach. Ironically, that win was the last of 16 straight for the Raptors over Chicago.
T.J. Ford scored 20 points for the 13-17 Raps, while Joey Graham added 17 and Andrea Bargnani pitched in with 16. Unfortunately, none of them could do quite enough to keep up with the streaky shooting of the Bulls.
Though Sam Mitchell’s club managed to stick around and shave the lead to six with under three minutes left in the fourth quarter, the Morris Peterson three-pointer that cut it from nine was the last field goal Toronto would sink.
Friday also marked the club’s 11 th straight game without their all-star forward Chris Bosh, who’s out with a bruised left knee. The injury hasn’t prevented Bosh from holding his position as second in voting among forwards for the NBA all-star game, but it definitely hurt the Raptors offence, which turned the ball over 19 times, leading to 25 points.
The Bulls also shot 60 per cent on the night, clear evidence of how the absence of Bosh all but cripples the team’s interior defence.
Up next for the Raptors is a trip to Memphis on Saturday, before they return home to host Steve Nash and the Phoenix Suns on January 3.
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